How the Storm-Titans flip divided Cooper Bai and his father

On February 5, Marcus Bai stepped off a plane from Papua New Guinea and walked through the front door of his Gold Coast home expecting good news. 

His son Cooper had agreed to join the Melbourne Storm. The deal was done. 

The Bai legacy would continue at the club where Marcus had won a premiership 26 years earlier. 

What greeted him instead would shatter the family, and set off one of the most extraordinary contract sagas in NRL history.

Cooper had changed his mind.

In the ten days Marcus had been away, a quiet conversation in a Titans office had unravelled everything.

New Gold Coast coach Josh Hannay sat with the 19-year-old and spoke about life, no football discussion needed.

Marcus Bai has not forgiven his son since.

"I'm very cranky about this and I'm pissed off with his management team as well,” Bai told The Courier Mail in a interview.

“People might say that's his decision, but it's a wrong decision to make.

“I don't know what he saw (in the Titans) to be honest.

“I'm not happy about it at all.

“The Titans might say he made the right choice. But to me, as an ex-player and his father, he didn't make the right choice at all. It's very wrong.”

Josh Hannay commented about his approach talking to Cooper Bai, how the conversations went and how he hoped to pitch Bai how important opportunity is to achieve exclusive feats at the Titans and buidling a legacy at the club. 

“In that 10-day cooling-off period, I sat down with Cooper and his manager,” Hannay revealed.

“We didn't so much talk about footy.

“I shared some life experiences with him and spoke to Cooper about the opportunity he has here as a Gold Coast boy and building something special here, rather than going somewhere else and contributing to what someone else has created.

“Cooper has the opportunity here to be a local lad and the face of having success here. That opportunity is priceless, you can't put a value on that.

“I said, ‘If you walked away from here and we take off, you would regret it for the rest of your life'. It wasn't an Xs and Os sales pitch, it was just the opportunity to build a legacy here. He went away and thought about it. It really resonated with him.

“He is enjoying the culture here and he feels like his football is going to improve which is an important factor at his age.

“He wanted to see where his football would best develop and it's a real mark for the program that Cooper wanted to be part of our future.”

Hannay is aiming to keep Gold Coast-bred talent, emphasising how important it is to have those players remain at the club and create a positive environment.

“Retaining someone like Cooper Bai is almost as important as retaining someone like ‘JC' (Jayden Campbell) or Tino (Fa'asuamaleaui),” Hannay stated.

“Those guys are crucial to us now but Cooper is a star of the future for us.

“Cooper had one foot out the door. It wasn't so much about strong-arming him or pressuring him to stay. He walked into the office one day and we had a good chat.

“He said ‘I just don't want to leave. I love the environment'. I feel there's a lot of positivity around our club and I'm glad Cooper felt that.

“The reality is he was very close to Melbourne. We had an opportunity with the 10-day cooling off period to get him to rethink things and over that time he had a change of heart.”

Cooper Bai wants to achieve one thing, to win a premiership for the Gold Coast Titans, to bring home the club's first trophy.

"Being able to do that with this team would be massive for me," Cooper said.

While Marcus is confused as to why his son wanted to be at the Titans instead of a club like Melbourne, Cooper is trying to forge his own legacy, and in doing so, has complicated one of the most important relationships in his life.

Whether the fractured relationship between father and son can be mended in time to align their futures potentially at the Chiefs, as Marcus is on the board of directors for the Chiefs, remains deeply uncertain.